Balaji cashes out his insane $1M Bitcoin stake, 97% below price target
A $1 million Bitcoin (BTC) prize game has been shut out 97% below the target price, with backer Balaji Srinivasan opting instead to donate a total of $1.5 million to three different entities as a settlement.
On May 2, Srinivasan, the former chief technology officer at Coinbase, said the bet had been “closed by mutual agreement” 45 days in advance.
As a settlement, Srinivasan paid pseudonymous Twitter user and self-titled “hyperinflation skeptic” James Medlock $500,000, donated $500,000 to Bitcoin Core developers and gave another $500,000 to the non-profit charity Give Direct.
“I settled the bet in advance and donated even more than I committed to,” Srinivasan tweeted.
“I’m not in the habit of burning a million dollars in public,” Srinivasan added, explaining that the reason for closing the bet around $970,000 below the target price of $1 million per Bitcoin was because he believes “in the public good” and citizens cannot longer “rely on the public sector […] to tell us when something is wrong.”
“I spent my own money sending a demonstrably costly signal that there is something wrong with the economy, and that there is not going to be a ‘soft landing’ as Powell promises – but something much worse.”
Despite giving away a total of $1.5 million, Srinivasan remains convinced that the US economy will eventually reach a state of hyperinflation. In his view, investors will rush to hedge the value of their rapidly declining dollar in Bitcoin, quickly driving the value of the asset to a price of $1 million.
The high-profile effort was launched on March 17 following a disagreement between Srinivasan and pseudonymous Twitter user James Medlock. Medlock first tweeted that he would bet someone $1 million that the US dollar would not enter any state of hyperinflation.
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The terms of the bet stipulated that if Bitcoin’s price did not reach $1 million by June 17, Medlock would receive $1 million in the dollar-pegged stablecoin USD Coin (USDC) as well as an additional 1 BTC. On the contrary, if the price of an individual Bitcoin were to appreciate to $1 million by the same date, then Balaji could keep 1 BTC and $1 million in USDC.
Bitcoin is currently trading at just over $28,700 and has a market cap of $556 billion according to Cointelegraph data.
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